It’s been a while since I updated, and I apologize for the delay, but the current of life picked up over the last couple of weeks and I just never found the time to update SoKoNotes. I started this update from seat 51A on a Boeing 747 bound for the United States and I finished it up a few days after returning to the USA.
As I sat in the terminal at Busan’s Gimhae airport preparing to board the plane for Narita, I looked around me. There were a few Western foreigners in the terminal. From somewhere behind me I heard a voice speaking in English. It was a man talking to his wife. The voice was just close enough to penetrate approaching reality and just distant enough to seem like it was coming from a dream.
It was surreal to sit there and listen to strangers talking and understand what they were saying. For so long I have lived in the artificial silence of a language barrier, unable to understand more than a few words. From behind me came the sound of my past, the sound of my homeland, the sound I will need to reacquaint myself with these next few weeks.
I continued to listen off and on to the Westerners, who sat behind me on the airplane. Their conversation was nothing special, but I simply marveled at their words. Simply listening to them speak and understanding their words was fascinating. I thought about the structure of language and how strange a tongue English actually is. I wondered what it would be like to listen to English and have no idea what was being said.
The halls in Narita were crowded with Westerners. It felt a little uncomfortable, like slipping on a shoe you haven’t worn in a while, to be among them. For one year I have been a minority, and I have long enjoyed both the anonymity and the minor celebrity my white face and blonde hair afforded me.
As I walked the halls towards my gate, I suddenly felt stripped of those qualities. I became boring old Stephen Jones from Atlanta all over again. As I boarded the plane and the nice Japanese gate workers spoke to me in English, I realized that nobody around me knew of the powerful experiences I had lived this past year.
It felt just like September of 2003 when I scaled Mount Katahdin and completed the Appalachian Trail. Over six months I had learned all the habits, skills and tricks of a long-distance hiker, and the minute I stepped into my parents’ minivan and drove out of Baxter State Park, it all became practically useless, history, trail behind me. I shaved my beard. I hung my pack on a nail in the attic. I started looking for a job.
The one thing I never hung up were my memories of the experience. To this day I can flip through one of the many notebooks I kept on the trail, read the entry and instantly be carried to that exact day on the Trail. I can smell the air, I can taste the sweat, and I can feel the ground under my feet. There were people I met there that continue to be my friends and experiences that helped shape and mold me into the man I am today.
The very same concept holds true for Korea. My experience in this small nation has been no less enriching and amazing than the journey on the Appalachian Trail. I learned more about being an adult in one year than in the entirety of my ‘adulthood.’ I rose to challenge that I was completely unprepared for and I left a success. I lived in a foreign land and learned how to solve the problems contained within that relationship. I discovered elements of myself that were good and bad and I became more familiar with both. I made a friend who changed my perception of myself and taught me how to love another person with my whole self.
Korea has been good to me in so many ways. Korea has affected me deeply, even my language.
I caught myself thanking English-speaking people with a ‘Kamsamnida’ and as I traversed the Narita terminal I accidentally greeted a few new faces with ‘annyong hasayo.’ I felt embarrassed, but sort of proud that such words were reflexive and natural. These changes speak to effects on my being that I cannot guess at, changes in my perception of the world that I have not yet realized.
My last week at ESS Best Jr. went by without much fanfare. I brought my camera and tripod to class with me and took photos with all of my favorite students. Advanced Three and Four were saddened to see me go. The students gave me candy and letters and promised to treat the incoming replacement - A Canadian named Laura Spencer- with dignity and respect.
I spent entire blocks of class simply teaching them how to pronounce here name. Most of the students have a hard time with L’s and R’s. They inadvertently pronounced her name, ‘Ralla’ or ‘Rolla’ or ‘Rollar.’ Han-sol, in Advanced Three, turned the class’ poor pronunciation into a joke and nicknamed Laura ‘Roller-skate Spencer.’ Someone in Dave’s class coined the name, ‘Ms. Pencil.’
The youngest children were the most perplexed by my imminent departure. The middle school students all wrote me cards and Eun-hee had the entire 1S students make a heart-shaped goodbye card for me. It was sort of odd to read their letters and all at once be touched in my heart and want to correct their grammar at the same time.
Some of the students were very personal in their letters, and told me things that made me feel like I had actually done a good job. The students praised me for my enthusiasm, patience and how much fun they had with me. They said they could tell I really cared, and they meant it.
However, it was these very qualities that the students liked so much that had the opposite effect with my employer. The state of my relationship to ESS Best Jr. had grown cold and impersonal in the last few months of my tenure. Mrs. Nam, who when I arrived would pay me compliments and trade jokes with me, was just a notch better than my enemy when I left.
I greatly angered that woman in the Spring by directly confronting her style and the methods of teaching, methods encouraged by Mr. Kim, methods I considered old-fashioned and a waste of the students’ time. Mrs. Nam caught me playing with 3B before class. We had turned the blue podium into a pirate ship by laying it on the floor and we were pretending to sail through the classroom. I guess it was a little over the top, and I braced for the worse when I got back up to the teacher’s lounge after class.
Mrs. Nam didn’t disappoint. She began to berate me in front of everyone in the office. She had some valid points about proper discipline and teacher conduct, but I have a short fuse, and I was angry over the public humiliation. I met her head on.
Emboldened by my status as a Native Speaker, I got into a screaming match with my boss, and I spoke my mind on Mr. Kim’s methods. For Mrs. Nam, this was a direct insult, and all that kept me from getting fired was my status as a Native Speaker. From that point on, the compliments and jokes ended. At the core of my relationship to Mrs. Nam, and by proxy my relationship to all of the Korean teachers who used Mr. Kim’s methods, was a mutual lack of respect and distrust.
I also had to teach closer to Mr. Kim’s methods in order to keep from being dismissed. I despised the drudgery and total lack of imagination inherent to these methods, and a dark, angry place grew under my skin. When Mrs. Nam and the other Korean teachers took me to lunch on my last day, they all sat apart from Gavin, Dave and I and we all barely spoke to one another.
Still, through all of this strife, I made out alive. ESS Best Jr. bought me my plane ticket, paid me my last paycheck, bonus and had the students gather in the auditorium Friday night to say farewell. Earlier that week, I wrote a speech and my girlfriend, Hyun-jeong, translated it into Korean for me. Here is the photograph of me reading the English version of the speech, which is below it.
Well, here we are. Twelve months ago I stood at this very spot and greeted you for the first time. Let me tell, time flies, and what can seem like an eternity passes in the blink of an eye.
Twelve months ago I stood behind this podium still a boy: Scared and insecure, unprepared for the great challenge before me. Over those twelve months, you and I grew together. I became familiar with your strengths, weaknesses and personalities, and I came to know me own personality, strengths and weaknesses, too.
But there is more. I knew that when I stepped into that classroom, you would ask me to be the adult, to be a voice of justice, moderation and wisdom. By addressing these demands, I have learned powerful life lessons. I have learned to be patient, thoughtful and caring. I have learned how to be a good friend by cheering you on when you succeeded and being supportive when you failed. I always strived to answer your questions, and I have taught myself to be humble when I didn’t know the answers. In many ways, I arrived in Korea a child, and I will leave as an adult. You shared in that transition. You challenged me to be more than I am, and I rose to that challenge.
I stand before you now preparing to depart for my homeland. It is hard to say goodbye to you all at once. I want each of you to know that wherever you go in life, you have a friend and a brother in me, and as long as I live, my house and my heart will always be open to you. I want to take each of you by the shoulders and look you in the eyes so that when I say this, you’ll know it comes from my heart: Thank you. I hope to see you again someday.
* * *
Afterward, Mr. Kim said a few words for the kids. I don't know what he said.
Hyun-jeong translated the speech so well that Mr. Kim read it to the students for me before I did. After I gave my speech, the students gave me a standing ovation. I shook hands and traded smiles as I walked down the aisle, Gavin filming the whole affair with my videocamera, Dave taking stills. It felt great.
All the rancor and bitterness I held in my heart for my employers evaporated. Yoo-jin and Han-eol gave me flowers and an impromptu speech (that was really impressive). The Korean teachers even gave me a nice letter and Mr. Lee gave me an amazing Korean mural which now rests in my dining room. Even Mrs. Nam gave me a hug. I felt sort of dazed.
Afterwards, I waited around the teacher’s office for the second-year middle school students to finish class. They had promised me a treat. I set up my camera and waited.
Dave rummaged through my drawer for overlooked goodies. Mrs. Nam and Ms. Ha chatted. I sat and stared at my empty desk, wondering where the time went. I pray that when I die, I don't feel the same way. So much of life doesn't feel like it's actually being lived sometimes, and then a part of it ends and I am left wondering how I could have lived it differently.
Of course, that is not the way I feel about my time in Korea, but until that moment, it had felt that way. I had been exhausted much of the time, stressed out from managing all of those classes, a disgruntled boss and a language barrier. I spent too much time feeling negative and angry, defensive and powerless. In the end, it was time very, very well-spent. The power of leaving lifted me out from those dark clouds so that I could see the truth. I love this place, I love these people and I will hold no grudge against any of them.
At 10 o clock the second year middle school students poured out of the sweltering auditorium and into the teachers office where I was sitting. We snapped photos, traded gifts and laughed. Here's a photo. Notice the befuddled look on the guy on the far left. Today was his first day.
Mr. Kim broke the party up with a series of sharp commands in Korean. The students all came to attention.
‘Don’t you all need to go home to your mommies and daddies?’ he enunciated in a flat, syrupy tone of voice that carried more meaning than his words. ‘I think we should let Mr. Jones go home,’ he finished, as if I was inconvenienced by the students. We all obediently filed downstairs and a few of the students made plans to take me to lunch the last Sunday I was in town.
I met them at Starbucks in the early afternoon and ate seafood noodle soup. I marveled at their English, which was much better than I had originally thought. They told me about their plans for the future and how much they were going to miss me. I bought them icecream and we exchanged a few more gifts, email addresses, and even a few tears. We took pictures at the Gwangbokdong intersection.
What I found so wonderful about the meeting was that I felt no uncomfortable change in status from Mr. Jones the teacher to Stephen Jones the foreigner. They treated me with the same respect. I felt honored to have been their teacher, so aware of the fact that the passing of my face is like that of water under a bridge to these children, so easily replaced by another and another and another with each passing year.
I smiled and got embarrassingly emotional as I sat and prepared the photos for SoKoNotes. Here are the group photos I took with my favorite classes. This first picture is of my sixth graders, Advance Four. I had this class the longest - nearly eight months. They went from being my most hated class to being one of my most loved.
The next photo is of my all-time favorite class at ESS Best Jr...Advanced Three. This was the best group of children I have ever taught. They had real panache, character and enthusiasm that made me smile every day. They could make a Winter day Spring. They were an inspiration. One of the little boys, Jin-soo (to my left), spoke better English than most of the children in the school regardless of age. When I would award a student an "Outstanding" for making a really good sentence, Jin-soo would get up out of his seat, run outside the classroom and declare "Outstanding!" Then he would run back in the classroom and declare with joyful abandon, "IN-standing!" Does it get any funnier than that?
This is Advanced One, my most troubled advanced class. This class wasn't composed entirely of students who had properly earned an 'advanced' ranking. There were a few dopes and goofballs, but it was these jokers who made this class so much fun. One of them, Joon-byeong, was particularly funny. Whenever I gave out word-search puzzles, Joon-byeong ignored the English words he was supposed to find in favor of the strange, random, meaningless mix of consonants and vowels that appealed to his warped sense of humor.
"Teacher! Teacher! Look!" Joon-byeong would say and point to a haphazard combination like JZXXCER. "Jazzecksser!" Joon-byeong would yell and burst into raucous laughter.
Next is 4S, a completely unremarkable class except for how hard they tried. Oftentimes at ESS, there are simply too many bright kids for the advanced class, so they less gifted ones get knocked down to the next level, "S." The "S" kids tend to be very good students, but not quite as talented in picking up languages as the advanced kids. They are really nice and fun and I only had them once a week, which bummed me out.
Another class that I struggled with early on and then grew to love was 1-2A. These incredibly young children were really bright and could be fun to teach. However, ESS Best Jr. didn't properly equip me for teaching these kids. There was neither adequate materials or enough time to really engage them, so we mostly just played games. It was babysitting. Fun babysitting, though. This was the best photo I could manage out of this bunch.
Nothing in my life has reminded me of how much I've lost by growing up quite like the children. They reminded me, and then they gave it all back to me over the course of twelve months. Although I've grown up a lot in the last year, I've also been put back in touch with my inner child. They say as you grow older, you grow harder. Maybe so. But I would say I am a harder man with a softer heart.
A lot of the kids wrote me letters. Their English is splotchy, but their words are sincere and beautiful to me. Here are a few of their letters to me, verbatim.
Mr. Jones
Hello! I’m Mi-gun. First, I’m very sad because you will leave ESS. But I’ll not cry because you will go to your country to achieve your dream. You are my best foreigner teacher. When I didn’t have pride of English, you helped me very kindly. So it is very helpful to me. I like your smile and your cool character. We had practiced the play, we went to Summer Camp, those were very good times! I will never forget you. You love taking pictures, don’t you? So you will be the best photographer. I’m sure about that. Don’t forget us! Thank you very much!! I was really happy with you. Be happy.
To Mr. Jones you likes Korea and taking photos.
Sincerely, Mi-gun.
* * *
To: Mr. John
How goes it, Mr. John? I’m your a pupil, Ji-won. Thank you for the tip. Thanks. I’m sad, because you are go to the America. But I’m never cry. Um, that explains why your English is good. I envy you. I wish I could speak English like you. AH! And you miss me. You can always get me on the phone. We all miss you. Please come and see us sometime. Could I see you again? Goodbye my teacher, Mr. Jones.
--A wise saying--
Little deeds of kindness, little words of love help to make earth happy like the heaven above.
Ji-won.
* * *
To Mr. Jones!
Hi Mr. Jones. I’m Da-mi. I write a first letter to you, because you will go your hometown. I met you on September first in 2005. Do you remember? I remember then. But you’ll go your hometown, by the way I’m very sad. I think you are the best teacher. We had great times. I miss you so much. Maybe you will a great teacher in USA. I believe you. I wish go Havard University School. Then I will meet you. I remember first and last Summer camp with you. In the future we will meet in Havard. Maybe you are a teacher and I’m a student. I wish...Idon’t know much English, but in the future I give you a perfect letter to you. Bye Mr. Jones. You must not forget me.
From Da-mi
* * *
Hello Mr. Jones. I’m the cute girl, SHin-eun!!!
Teacher. You’ve going back home, so I’m very sad!! And thank you for teaching me!!! Teacher! Teacher! This box is for you, and I made it. I’ll give you photo. Mr. Jones. Your class is fun!! And thank you for the bag. Ohhhhh! This is my address. I will send you a letter and please write back. Teacher. Always stay healthy and don’t forget me!!! Good bye teacher.
I’m Eagle. I love you. Teacher. Shin-eun.
* * *
I love you too. All of my students. I love you, too.
It’s funny. Only a few boys wrote letters to me. One of them, a third-year middle school student abstained from writing me letters. Instead, he began sending me bizarre, schizoid email messages I took to be friendly. He was always a really quiet boy who suddenly came to life in the final weeks of my stay. His English is horrible, but I know he means well. Here is one of those funny messages I received after I left.
OH - I'm sorry ... My answer the letter is late . I'm ! I'm ! see my picture in your homepage ~. Um .... When hiking in the mountain , I'm help Ha Jeon Young teacher ! I'm proud of myself ~ and thank you .. You're very very take a picture ? well!!
However ~ I love you hahahahahahahaha - Young-jun.
* * *
Following my last day with ESS Best Jr., I went to Jejudo with my girlfriend, Hyun-jeong. We had been planning the trip for a few weeks, as it had been our dream to get out of Busan and be a real couple, even if for only a few days. Up until this point, I had been a secret Hyun-jeong kept from her mother, who like some Koreans, probably would not have sanctioned our relationship.
As the airplane approached the runway over Jeju, I felt like I was descending into a central American banana republic like El Salvador or Nicaragua. Lush green farms covered the island, broken only by the occasional road or village. Mountains rose in the distance, shrouded in clouds. I could see the ocean through the window on the other side of the aircraft. The glass oval filled and emptied with blue while my window filled and emptied with green as the plane tilted from side to side on its final decent.
Rental cars were cheap, in the neighborhood of $30 a day. However, the woman behind the counter informed me that I would need an international drivers license in order to rent the vehicle. This was disappointing. I tried to make due with my Mississippi license, which I insisted was internationally certified (despite any markings to that effect), but the woman stood her ground and flat out denied me my God-given American RIGHT to drive a car!
So we took a bus.
The bus took us to the other side of the island, to a town called Seogwipo, where there had been an Ironman triathlon the day before. Here is a shot of Seogwipo.
And here is a shot of a man with a bicycle, presumably to highlight the previously aforementioned information concerning a triathlon that had previously occurred on the date prior to our imminent arrival in the glorious Korean city of Seogwipo. Right.
Our hotel room was, well, not what I had paid for. Actually, it was very far from what I had paid for. My sixty dollars a night had bought us what looked like a set from a porno filmed in the 1970s. Earthy browns, oranges and yellows were the colors of choice, though the walls were white. Our bathtub was an olive green set on an orange-tile floor. The air conditioner wasn't on, so the room was an oven. A pitiful electric fan standing by the TV was our only respite until 5PM, when the air conditioner was slated to come on-line. None of this mattered to either of us. We were free! This was our own little slice of heaven, a veritable Eden compared to the awful, stifling purgatory of Busan.
That afternoon we decided to go to the east end of the island and see the famous sub-island of Ewdo. We spent a couple of hours looking for the ferry in Seogwipo before giving up and hailing a cab to take us to the bus terminal. Upon entering the cab, the driver informed us that there was no bus to Ewdo now, that we had missed it. He kindly offered to take us there for $30. OK, I said, willing to see some of the island at almost any price. I had lost my mind.
The trip to Ewdo was long, and once we got there, the woman at the ferry terminal told us that the last ferry had already left and we were too late. We walked out of the terminal under cloudy skies, the afternoon slight quickly slipping away. There was no bus terminal in sight, just a huge parking lot and a long, bleak gray breakwater twenty feet tall stretching into the ocean. A group of taxis was gathered in one corner of the parking lot, and they grinned at us as we walked by.
One of the taxi drivers ran up to us. He had a cocky grin on his face that instantly told me that Hyun-jeong and I were being milked for cash. He almost jokingly offered to take us back to Seogwipo. Sensing a scam, I protested, but he put his arm around me and did his best to convince me that there was no bus back to Seogwipo and his cab was the only method of transportation back to our hotel, thirty miles distant. I was enraged, but I had no choice. Hyun-jeong agreed with him, and so I had no recourse but to pay the man $28 (he gave us a discount) to take us back to our hotel.
The cabs had managed to talk me out of sixty dollars. I would learn later on that such charlatan behavior is common among Jejudo Taxi drivers. On the bright side, we got to see a lot of the Jeju countryside from the window of the cabs.
To make up for our blunder, we decided to stick close to home for dinner. We walked down to where the river met the ocean and followed it down a beautiful winding stone path to a waterfall lit RockCity-style by sodium-vapor lights. The air was cool and the path was sheltered by trees and bordered by the river on one side and the cliff wall on the other. We took pictures.
For dinner we ate the famous Jejudo Black Pork Samgyupsal, so named for the famous black pigs raised on human feces.
Raised on human feces!?! What!?! Wait a minute...
Gavin had heard a rumor that the pigs were fed human excrement because it made their flesh taste better. This, I presume, had been fed to Gavin via Dave, who had got it from one of his adult students back when he was working for ESS Adult. Dave and his wife spun many tales such as these, all culled from their students. I never told Dave or Susanna this, but I think now it was all alot of Korean urban legends, or so I hoped as I wolfed down black pork samgyupsal in that restaurant on Jejudo.
Hyun-jeong didn't seem bothered by the rumors of the black pigs' disgusting diet, and told me such rumors were just that - rumors. Rumor or no, the samgyupsal was the best I had ever eaten in Korea. (For those of you who don't know, samgyupsal is basically half-inch thick, unseasoned bacon that you grill on your table, cut into pieces and wrap in leaves with kimchi, vegetables and soybean sauce. Very, very delicious)
The next day we decided to hike Jejudo's signature mountain: Hallasan. Jejudo is basically the remains of an ancient volcano, and Hallsan is the cone. It rises over 2000 feet into the sky and sports a small crater lake at the top.
Hyun-jeong and I jumped into a cab that morning and directed him to the bus terminal.
"Oh?" He asked. "Where are you going?" Hyun-jeong told him and he shook his head. "Hallasan? You can't go there, it's too late to catch a bus. There is no bus there now." I looked at my watch. It was 10 o clock in the morning. The cabbie continued. "I'll take you there now for 20,000 won, if you'd like." Hyun-jeong began to nod in approval, but I detected the hint of the same scam the cabbies pulled on us the day before on our cursed journey to Ewdo. I cursed under my breath.
"Pull over, let us out." I said and paid the cabbie his two dollars. The driver protested, but I insisted and we left his car. Hyun-jeong was confused, but I said we should at least check the bus terminal before we took a taxi. Hyun-jeong called the bus terminal while I scored some egg sandwiches for breakfast. Hyun-jeong was just hanging the phone up as I walked up to her with the steaming egg sandwich. She looked upset.
"The cab driver lied!" She said. "There is a bus to Hallasan, and it's only two thousand won!" What was more, the bus runs all day long. I felt vindicated. Later on, Hyun-jeong's friend Yoo-jin would confirm my suspicions that the Jeju taxi drivers were notorious for ripping tourists off. We were lucky to have only been 'taken for a ride' just once.
HJ and I rode the bus up to the trailhead for Hallasan. The rest area was shrouded in fog as we bought kimbop, candy bars, water and rain ponchos for the eight-kilometer trek to the top of the mountain. The lady behind the counter said that the park rangers were turning hikers away before they got to the top due to inclement weather, but that didn't stop us. After a brief stop to look at a Hallasan photo gallery, we were on our way up the well-graded trail to the summit.
The hike was really pleasant. A cloud clung to the mountain, lending the forest an uncanny silence. The air was cool, damp and still and the leaves on the trees and bushes glistened with moisture. I felt like Sam and Frodo from The Lord of The Rings trekking through the forests of Galadriel. We talked and laughed and had a good time as we slowly ascended higher into the clouds.
After six kilometers, we stopped for lunch at a camp site consisting of two tent platforms by a wooden staircase. Kimbop and Snickers bars were on the menu. I took a nap while Hyun-jeong snapped photos.
It was getting late, so afterwards we walked back down the mountain and caught another bus back to Seogwipo.
The next day we went to see an art gallery exhibiting the works of one of Hyun-jeong's favorite Korean artists, Lee Joong-seop. Joong-seop was one of Korea's greatest artists rising out of World War Two, with a style obviously influenced by the likes of Picasso.
Though trained in Japan and married to a Japanese woman, Joong-seop took his art in a wholly Korean direction. He lived and painted in Seogwipo for a portion of his life, and a landscape he painted could be clearly viewed out the window of the museum, looking South.
Hyun-jeong and I snuck onto the roof of the building and took photos. I felt like a teenager again, my dad's camera in my hands, getting into mischief with my friends. I tried climbing a wall.
Here is HJ. Isn't she cute?
Here I am checking out the authentic replica of Lee Joong-seop's house. Hyun-jeong pointed out the stark difference between the age-old Korean design and the high-rise condo towering above it in the background. She has such a good eye.
After we flew home to Busan, I spent the remainder of my time saying good-bye to all of the people who helped me live and work in Busan. Here is Soo-ho, my banker. Soo-ho's only request was for white, American t-shirts, which he claims are higher quality than the Korean version one can buy in Nampo-dong.
This is a photo of the crew working at Kimbop Chunguk (Kimbop Paradise), a Korean franchise restaurant my coworkers considered junkfood. For the first three months of my stay in Korea, I ate nearly every meal at Kimbop Chunguk. They had everything: Jiggaes, baekbans, dabops, dankas, noodles, rice, mandu, and of course, Kimbop of all kinds. The ladies who worked there were kind to Gavin and I. They taught me a lot of my Korean food vocabulary, and were very patient as I practiced new Korean words and phrases on them. Lovely women. I wish them only the best.
Naturally, some of the best friends I made were friends with Hyun-jeong first. Here is a pic of her Algerian friend Allal and I at an upscale Indian restaurant in Haeundae. Muslims are rare in Korea, and so it was really interesting and sometimes hilarious hanging out with Allal, who politely enjoyed standing out in the crowd, so to speak. He had a great sense of humor and a positive outlook on Korea, which is rare among foreigners here.
This next picture is of me and Yoo-jin, another of Hyun-jeong's friends. Yoo-jin and Hyun-jeong met while they traveled to the United States together in 2003. When they returned to Korea, they met every week to practice speaking English with one another, a sort of two-woman conversational English club. This is part of the reason Hyun-jeong speaks English as well as she does, and Yoo-jin was no different. Here we are at Haagen-daz together.
Yoo-jin has impeccable taste in food, and whenever we needed a restaurant recommendation, Hyun-jeong called Yoo-jin on her cellphone. It became sort of an inside joke with us, actually. I really liked how forward-thinking and positive a person Yoo-jin was. She also had a good sense of humor and honored me by exclusively speaking English whenever I was around, even to Hyun-jeong. An amazing person.
Here is another photo I took that night of my beautiful Hyun-jeong. Though the light is bad, her expression is priceless.
Of all the people I met in Korea, she is the one I will miss the most. Over the course of our three months together, I fell deeply in love with her. Our separation at the airport was possibly the most painful moment of the last four years. Will I ever see her again? I know so, but not the exact date. The current US-Korea visa requirements present a massive, unwarranted obstacle to our relationship being anything more than friendly. Hyun-jeong needs to jump through numerous hoops, some of them financial, in order to get even a tourist visa to the US.
The sick thing is how easy it is for me to get to Korea. All I have to do is step on an airplane pointed towards Seoul with my passport in hand. POC - Piece of Cake. So I'll probably visit her when the time and money become available.
The other person I left behind is Gavin, whom I invited to Korea back in November of 2005. Gavin turned out to be a brilliant teacher, and we had a lot of fun together over the ensuing months. He took me to dinner at the Lotte buffet a few weeks ago, where we crammed all the steak, lamb and sushi we could into our mouths for forty smackers a piece. Here is a picture I took of him at a samgyupsal place in Haeundae. Check out the restaurant's emblem.
I will see Gavin again in January of 2007 when he returns to Atlanta to take a break.
I gained a little weight over the last few weeks as people bought me dinner, drinks and gave me candies and chocolates for parting gifts. I’m sad to say the ten pounds I lost by eating the Korean diet has been cut in half. I guess it’s fitting that I should put on a little weight before going to America, you know, to fit in.
When I stepped off of the plane in Detroit, a giant LCD screen showed George Bush addressing the nation, his voice booming through the airport. Westerners were everywhere. I felt small, alone and behind the times as I boarded the plane for Atlanta. When I got off the plane, my parents greeted me with cheers and open arms. It felt like a movie. My father and mother held me tightly, repeatedly telling me how good it was that I was home. I hugged them right back, glad to be home.
Atlanta is much like I left it, though now it sports the largest aquarium on the face of the planet Earth and the Braves are a lame, losing team for the first time since I was 12 years old. I only have a week to go before I step on another airplane and visit my friends Faith and Bernardo in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a couple of weeks. So stay tuned, I have more insights into the joys of international travel coming up in the next episode of SoKoNotes.
What? You thought the adventure was over with Korea? Good heavens, no!
In many ways, my life is just beginning. I have a photography business to build and get off the ground. I have to find a way to get Hyun-jeong into my country. I am not finished traveling. If anyone is interested, I can continue this blog for a long time to come.
Well, I've written enough. I'm tired. I'll write again in October when I get back from Argentina. Or I'll write from Argentina itself. Depends. Stay tuned! SoKoNotes will be right back!
Peace.
-Notes
